Dr. Pulaski F. Hyatt 1836-1904
On Christmas Day 1886, a resident of Lewisburg PA wrote a letter to the widow of General Custer.
Mrs. Custer:
Dear Madam as you are writing up incidents in the life of your late lamented husband perhaps you will allow me to state one that came under my own observation and made a lasting impression upon my mind. It shows how a cool head kept its balance under adverse and trying circumstances.
I have often wished for the gift of poesy, that I might clearly portray in verse, what I would be pleased to call “Custers ride before the president”
The
scene was on the occasion of the “Grand Review” in Washington at the close of
the war.
A stand
was erected on Pennsylvania Ave. in front of the White House, upon which the
president and his cabinet stood for three days, reviewing the battle scarred
veterans, before discharging them to return to their homes.
Your
husband, the youngest Major General of the army and almost boyish in
appearance, rode at the head of his division: when near the treasury building
about two squares from the grandstand, some admiring friend placed a large
wreath of evergreens interspersed with rosebuds and other flowers, over the
horses neck. Whether the horse dislike such trappings, or the maker had
neglected to remove the thorns from the roses, I know not; but at all events
the horse became greatly excited and tried hard to throw the general: finding
this a hopeless task he tried the runaway dodge and started off with all the
speed that his powerful, muscular frame could command. Such jumps and plunges,
I have never seen a horse make before, nor since.
The
wind had removed the general's hat and his long, light hair was streaming in
the wind. In this condition, with his horse high in the air, he crossed the
line in front of the president and his cabinet.
Pulaski F. Hyatt
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He served in Co. D, 11th Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteers from Lycoming County, during the civil war, and later was a surgeon at Carver Hospital, Washington, DC.
In 1876, Hyatt was sent by presidential candidate Samuel J. Tilden to supervise the counting of votes in the State of Florida. During the 1876 presidential election, Tilden won the popular vote over his Republican opponent, Rutherford B. Hayes. But the result in the Electoral College was in question because the states of Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina each sent two sets of Electoral Votes to Congress. Hayes became president.
In 1885, Hyatt was in Lewisburg. The Chronicle reported, On August 6th that " our new and esteemed citizen, Dr. P.F. Hyatt has been appointed by Pension Commissioner Black, one of the Examining Surgeons for this Congressional District for the Pension Bureau."
The article, included below, went on to list Hyatt's war record.
In 1893, he was appointed United States Counsul at Santiago de Cuba by President Grover Cleveland. He served in that office until the outbreak of the Spanish-American War in 1898.
The Census in 1900 shows Hyatt, aged 63, living on Market Street in Lewisburg Pa. His occupation was listed as "Physician", and with him resided his wife of 39 years, as well as his son & daughter in law, John & Laura Hyatt.
Hyatt died on January 17th 1904. The Northumberland Press reported, in his obituary, that he had been a resident of Lewisburg for 20 years. Having arrived there around 1885, it seems likely that he only lived in Jersey Shore for a short time before his death. He is buried at Wildwood Cemetery.
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Elizabeth Clift Bacon, "Libbie", was born April 8 1842, in Monroe, Michigan, the only surviving child of Daniel and Eleanor Bacon. She was educated in private girls schools in Monroe, and in New York. She met George Armstrong Custer, a young captain in the Union Army, at a Thanksgiving Party. They were married February 9th 1864.
Left destitute after her husbands death, Elizabeth Custer became an author, a public speaker, and an advocate for her husbands legacy.
After her Gen. Custer and 5 of the 12 companies of the 7th Cavalry were wiped out at the Battle of the Little Big Horn in June 1876, many in the press, Army, and government criticized him for having blundered into a massacre. President Ulysses S. Grant publicly blamed him, Elizabeth launched a one-woman campaign to rehabilitate her husband's image. Her assistance to Frederick Whittaker, the author of the first biography of George, helped enable the rapid production of the popular book, which praised George's career and set the tone for future biographers in the decades that followed.
Largely as a result of her decades of campaigning on his behalf, General Custer's image as the gallant fallen hero amid the glory of Custer's Last Stand was a canon of American history for almost a century after his death.
Elizabeth herself then went on to author 3 books: Boots & Saddles (1885) Tenting On The Plains (1887) and Following the Guidon (1890)
President Theodore Roosevelt, in a letter to Elizabeth said that her husband was "one of my heroes" and "a shining light to all the youth of America."
After an initial period of distress dealing with her late husband's debts, Elizabeth spent her over a half-century of widowhood in financial comfort attained as the result of her literary career and lecture tours, leaving an estate of over $100,000.
Elizabeth Custer died in New York City, four days before her 91st birthday, on April 4, 1933, and was buried next to her husband at West Point. A few years before her death she told a writer that her greatest disappointment was that she never had a son to bear her husband's honored name.
Elizabeth Custer was portrayed by actress Olivia de Havilland in the 1941 film They Died with their Boots On, by Mary Ure in the 1967 film Custer of the West, by Blythe Danner in the 1977 television movie The Court Martial of George Armstrong Custer, and by Rosanna Arquette in the 1991 television mini-series Son of the Morning Star.
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